Winners wall shouldn't collapse

Even if you don't lose a single unit defending in a wall, the wall is broken, it is unrealistic.

Yes and No.
Yes - it makes sense if enough units survive that the wall would still be there.
No - the purpose of the wall is to buy you a turn, not to be a realistic trench that is able to stop an advance of enemy hordes for weeks.
Walls not breaking if there are enough units surviving to maintain a wall could be an interesting custom rule or something like that, in regular games they should be left as they are now.

My problem is exactly that, that in most cases it doesn't buy you a turn, because one turn before the offense the enemy just throws a militia at your however strong wall and you have it no more.

Walls are not supposed to be unbreakable fortresses, their whole point is that they break with a simple attack. Changing this means changing the entire game.

I disagree. They might not always buy you a full turn but that does not mean they are not extremely useful. In many cases they do more than simply delaying the unavoidable by one turn.
If you analyze a scenario where you have no wall and one where you have a wall:
No wall: pretty much no benefit, default no extra protection, city can be taken by surprise, enemy is not slowed down at all and +3 militia is not a a battle winning advantage if the enemy knows it is in the city before the attack, he is going to adjust for that.

Now with wall:
- worst possible scenario: it forces the enemy to waste a unit to break the wall.
- there is a wall and it is in range, enemy attacks it in turn 1 and breaks it. He attacks the city in the turn 2 VS there is no wall and city is in range, enemy attacks it in turn 1.
- there are let's say 20 cities all walled and in range of the enemy. And he decides to do the following:
send 20 units (tanks, bombers, marines, infantry, whatever), one to attack each wall. Let's say that in 7 out of 20 battles the attacking unit killed 2 militias and survived. He just paid the price of 13 units to buy a chance, a chance to attack any of the cities. It is quite huge in some cases e.g. opponents who are crossing an ocean in a world game with subs filled with marines.
he sends 4 units to break 4 walls. You have to defend 4 cities that turn not 20. The other 16 are WALLED and safe. They are buying you a turn to defend them by being there. They are not buying you a turn by destroying the whole stack that would attack the city.
- other thing is that you get a warning which city will/could be attacked. If he breaks one wall he can only attack one city or attack no city at all.
- if you are playing against an opponent who plans ahead he will destroy your walls one turn earlier if he can. But he has to plan ahead and waste units on walls, tell you exactly which cities he can attack and he does not always can destroy the wall earlier and it will cost him a turn.
- if you are playing against a inexperienced/bad player he will loose a turn every time he encounters a wall.
- you are not restricted to walling only cities. You can block many ways for your opponent by few well placed walls. They will slow him down most of the time.
- if you think your opponent will break a wall in this turn you can make a second one in his way in the same turn. Next turn the city wall is broken but there is a next one in the way and your city is still protected.
- if he breaks a wall and you send units from another city to make a new wall, if he manages to capture the city you might lock his whole attacking stack inside the city. They will be trapped by your new wall.

I do not think about walls as solid objects to block the attacking force right there. There are more like a shield that takes a first hit, breaks but leaves you without a scratch and alerts you that there might be a next strike at exactly the same place. Walls to me are more liquid/dynamic than solid. You break them and make them in the same turn. In the same turn your enemy breaks it, you try to make a new one.
If you wall everything from northern Siberia to the Persian Gulf and think that it should protect you, enemy should not be able to pass without the massive 200+ stack, you are thinking wrong about how the walls work.

TL;DR
there is no real benefit of not having a wall
having a wall that sometimes does exactly the same thing as no wall is still better as in vast majority of cases walls do anything from: wasting an enemy unit/turn, saving you a city/country and in a long run win you a game.

Thanks for the detailed answer.

"If you wall everything from northern Siberia to the Persian Gulf and think that it should protect you, enemy should not be able to pass without the massive 200+ stack, you are thinking wrong about how the walls work."
In this and similar cases the enemy won't need a massive force, because you wouldn't station 100 infantries at all the 50 defending points (because of the huge maintenance etc.), so the wall would be breakable with 1-2 units at most of its part, except where you indeed decide to station 100 inf. The battles themselves would be exactly the same as now with the same results, just if the wall wins, the wall stays.

I think the difference in our opinion comes from what we expect from these walls. You have much more experience about how the walls work in this game, accept it as a liquid time saver feature and got used to it, no problem with that. I am trying to relate it to reality. Just take a look at the 1st and 2nd WW, all the armies aim was to not let the frontlines break at any point, because they would have been surrounded locally and certainly defeated. The whole war went down with moving but constantly existing lines at the fronts occasionally broken here and there causing quick victories and defeats respectively locally. It was never like throw a grenade at every section and yes, we can get through between them even if they are much stronger and ruin their support lines and peaceful homelands.

So, again, it wouldn't mean that the walls would be any harder to defeat, but you would have to defeat them (or a certain % of the defending units, so make a proper effort otherwise don't succeed) to make the wall disappear. Now it's just time saver, in my opinion it should be a strategic element like in reality. It's not that i wouldn't sleep until it's implemented, just that's what this forum is for.

Wr1tt3n by reptik, 30.07.2016 at 08:49

Thanks for the detailed answer.

"If you wall everything from northern Siberia to the Persian Gulf and think that it should protect you, enemy should not be able to pass without the massive 200+ stack, you are thinking wrong about how the walls work."
In this and similar cases the enemy won't need a massive force, because you wouldn't station 100 infantries at all the 50 defending points (because of the huge maintenance etc.), so the wall would be breakable with 1-2 units at most of its part, except where you indeed decide to station 100 inf. The battles themselves would be exactly the same as now with the same results, just if the wall wins, the wall stays.

I think the difference in our opinion comes from what we expect from these walls. You have much more experience about how the walls work in this game, accept it as a liquid time saver feature and got used to it, no problem with that. I am trying to relate it to reality. Just take a look at the 1st and 2nd WW, all the armies aim was to not let the frontlines break at any point, because they would have been surrounded locally and certainly defeated. The whole war went down with moving but constantly existing lines at the fronts occasionally broken here and there causing quick victories and defeats respectively locally. It was never like throw a grenade at every section and yes, we can get through between them even if they are much stronger and ruin their support lines and peaceful homelands.

So, again, it wouldn't mean that the walls would be any harder to defeat, but you would have to defeat them (or a certain % of the defending units, so make a proper effort otherwise don't succeed) to make the wall disappear. Now it's just time saver, in my opinion it should be a strategic element like in reality. It's not that i wouldn't sleep until it's implemented, just that's what this forum is for.

This game is not supposed to be a realistic warfare simulator, and the game is more fun with walls being as they are.

I support, this would'be a great addition in overall and could have many benefits such as:

- Allowing the very realistical situation where the troops defends just outside of the city to avoid civilians casualties. In many cases, that is how the real life battles goes.

-Walls could also works as permanent barriers (as long as there are units alive) which would give you a reason to send more than 1 unit to wall.

- Allow you to 'siege' a city, by walling opponent 's cities and defending the wall so they can't enter or leave units from the city without breaking your wall. This will specially hurt your opponent if all he have are units with high defense but low attack.


-Will allow swap between defending on cities and outside of them, which could benefit the upcoming "Hold the Line" strategy and also allow a different way for play Blitzkrieg and RA (both of which infs have negative bonuses when defending in city).

Wr1tt3n by Homero, 29.07.2016 at 16:03

Now with wall:
- worst possible scenario: it forces the enemy to waste a unit to break the wall.

I think you forgot the part where your opponent prevent you from forming a wall in the first place. He will have 1 unit unused for 1 turn, while you will have 2 or more (usually 3, many more in scenarios) unused units for that turn.

It's a lot easier to wf than to wall, at least when you know where the wall will be made(most of the times you DO).

Wr1tt3n by clovis1122, 30.07.2016 at 09:40

- Allow you to 'siege' a city, by walling opponent 's cities and defending the wall so they can't enter or leave units from the city without breaking your wall. This will specially hurt your opponent if all he have are units with high defense but low attack.

where do i sign to make this happen?

Wr1tt3n by clovis1122, 30.07.2016 at 09:45

I think you forgot the part where your opponent prevent you from forming a wall in the first place.

I was only comparing scenarios where there is a wall to the one where it is not. We can assume that if you get wf you move your 3 militia into the city and it is the same as no wall the turn the city gets attacked. It might make a difference when you wall the city you written off and you could actually hold with those +3 units.

Wr1tt3n by reptik, 30.07.2016 at 08:49

I am trying to relate it to reality. [...] Now it's just time saver, in my opinion it should be a strategic element like in reality.

Well when you try to relate to reality things from the game that is obviously not aiming for too much realism you run into ton of problems like this. Making a militia wall in the middle of the ocean, attacking all the neutral countries in the area an all the rest of them just waits to be slaughtered, your militia can defeat destroyers, bombers, stealth bombers, subs... you cannot use the richest city in the country because you do not control a capitol. You can start pages of topics about changing things so they relate better to the real world.

For all the reasons I already stated, walls are a major strategic element that gives you time and much more than that. They are important and strong as they are.
If you make walls stronger it will lead to even more stalemates on the front. It sometimes takes a lot of time to grind through walls and cities of your enemy.
Another thing is that if you lose a major battle for the city you lose the city. If you will make so that you have same battles for the wall outside the city, the defending will be even easier than it is now. If you lose a battle in the wall you lose your units but still can reinforce the city next turn to defend it. With walls working that way you do not get punished as much for losing the battle of the same scale. It could slow some games drastically.
It may be reasonable for something like WW1 scenario but not for the default game.

Wr1tt3n by Tundy, 30.07.2016 at 10:55

Wr1tt3n by clovis1122, 30.07.2016 at 09:40

- Allow you to 'siege' a city, by walling opponent 's cities and defending the wall so they can't enter or leave units from the city without breaking your wall. This will specially hurt your opponent if all he have are units with high defense but low attack.

where do i sign to make this happen?

Maybe its in the new strat coming out; Hold the Line

Wr1tt3n by Zephyrusu, 30.07.2016 at 09:16

This game is not supposed to be a realistic warfare simulator, and the game is more fun with walls being as they are.

Just because it is not supposed to be, we should keep it low (relative)? If there's been pokemon chasing implemented from the beginning (would be even more fun!), then that should be the way? It uses real map, real countries, and units based on reality, then i think it is logical to aim for realistic gameplay within reasonable limits.

Wr1tt3n by Homero, 30.07.2016 at 11:03

I was only comparing scenarios where there is a wall to the one where it is not. We can assume that if you get wf you move your 3 militia into the city and it is the same as no wall the turn the city gets attacked. It might make a difference when you wall the city you written off and you could actually hold with those +3 units.

When you can wf but just can't reach the city is only a few % of the cases. I didn't even dare to mention wf to not take the original theme away, kind of same problem, just because some petty single units are running between my massive armies they can not cooperate?

"Making a militia wall in the middle of the ocean" - i consider it a bug, why not fix it? (although i have to admit in 1 game i used it in an irrelevant situation)
"attacking all the neutral countries in the area" - history books are not loud from the resistance of captured neutral countries in the II WW, but in an RP game it should cause diplomatic conflicts at least.
"your militia can defeat destroyers, bombers, stealth bombers" - their effects could be negated by bonuses and maluses (btw an F117 was shot down in Serbia not so long ago by a 'militia').
"you cannot use the richest city in the country because you do not control a capitol" - yes, that is almost completely awkward, but you can write it on national resistance's account, which is only calmed down by capturing the capital and declaring a kind of puppet state within your empire. But you could be allowed lets say the third of the standard reinforcement to use.
"You can start pages of topics about changing things so they relate better to the real world." - that is what i am doing, but i don't want to push it too far. I understand that it is hard to relate everything exactly to reality, if not impossible. But this thread's aim is so simple. Why not support it, why not improve? The only point to which we can relate the game's rules is reality, everything else is random, we can define anything. We could state at the beginning that triangles defeat squares or what not and call it a game, but in this one everything is a simplified reality, and if it can be polished towards reality, why not? Just because we got used to the 'worse' way? I don't ask to take the tank's tubes angles and wind direction into consideration in battles. Front lines are lines, not separate dots, that is where the big things happened in modern era.

And i have to point it out again: i didn't suggest to make the walls any stronger. Just if my wall consists of 200 units 1 shouldn't break it without defeating it or at least a certain % of it.

I know it is business and the paying customers spend hours here and play several quick games, the primary aim is not to make the game real but to satisfy these players and give them a fluent gameplay experience. I don't just want to find the best way to manipulate these binary codes to fulfill my instinctive hunger for the tiny dopamin rush that victories and looking at my stats generate within 'sacred' boundaries. If someone is not here to be a general or an emperor or a president then they might as well be on a candy crush leaderboard.

But maybe your wall is thrown into disarray allowing enemy units to walk on past.
though i would think this is possibly an interesting custom feature

Wr1tt3n by reptik, 30.07.2016 at 18:51

Wr1tt3n by Zephyrusu, 30.07.2016 at 09:16

This game is not supposed to be a realistic warfare simulator, and the game is more fun with walls being as they are.

Just because it is not supposed to be, we should keep it low (relative)? If there's been pokemon chasing implemented from the beginning (would be even more fun!), then that should be the way? It uses real map, real countries, and units based on reality, then i think it is logical to aim for realistic gameplay within reasonable limits.

It wouldn't make it anymore fun, but if it did, why not. Maybe add Pokemon as a rare unit.